


Six Reasons Why The Princess Bride is Actually Terrible

by lionessvalenti



Category: Cracked: After Hours
Genre: Gen, Gen Work, The Princess Bride References
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-12
Updated: 2014-09-12
Packaged: 2018-02-17 02:11:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2293115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lionessvalenti/pseuds/lionessvalenti
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Soren hates The Princess Bride. Inconceivable!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Six Reasons Why The Princess Bride is Actually Terrible

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this about a year and a half ago, and I guess I really wanted to rant about The Princess Bride (a movie I love), so it got turned into an After Hours fanfic that I immediately shelved. I just found it and here it is.

"You're wrong," Dan said as he picked up his soda. "If you start this, everyone is going to disagree with you, and you're going to lose."

Soren shook his head. "I don't think so."

"You're trying to argue with a fact."

"There are no facts here, Daniel. This is an opinion. It's an opinion that I think more people hold than you know."

Dan set his glass back down without taking a sip. He held his hands up on either side of his head. "You can't say that about one of the most beloved movies of the last thirty years."

Kate blinked as she sat down at the table. "I was gone for five minutes and I have no idea what they're talking about. I completely missed the beginning of the conversation."

Michael leaned over and muttered, "I've been sitting here the whole time and I missed the beginning of the conversation. I guess it's something they were talking about earlier?"

Dan looked at them. "Soren is wrong."

"About _what_?" Michael asked.

"All I said is that The Princess Bride is the most overrated movie of all time," Soren replied. "People act like it's everyone's favorite movie, and they quote it all the time, assuming that you know what they're talking about."

Dan shook his head. "And I think you're just bitter because you didn't see the movie until two years ago and you _didn't_ understand all the references."

"No, I saw it two years ago and I didn't like it."

"Whoa, whoa, wait," Katie said, waving her hands around, trying to get their attention. "You don't have to like it, Soren, but the most overrated movie of all time? That's kinda harsh, don't you think? There's a lot of people out there who love Twilight."

"Yeah, but for every person who thinks Twilight is great literature and an even better film franchise, there's five more who think it sucks. This generation is expected -- no, _programmed_ to like  The Princess Bride." Soren picked up his straw and ripped the wrapper apart before shoving the straw through the ice in his glass.

"Inconceivable!" Michael exclaimed, pointing a finger in the air.

Soren nodded. "Exactly my point. You say that and you just expect everyone around you to know what the hell you're talking about. But to some, you're just saying a word. They don't know you're making a joke. They just know you're saying something incorrectly."

"I'm surprised that you don't like it," Katie said. "It's all about honor and getting the girl. That's the kind of stuff you're into, Soren."

"And there's sword fighting," Michael added.

"No, no, it's not," Soren replied with a shake of his hand. "It's bland with clear-cut good guys and bad guys, and little else."

Dan shook his head. "That's the opposite of what it is. You don't know at the beginning that Humperdink is evil. He's just a guy. Who wants to get married. And Inigo and Fezzik are first introduced to us as bad guys, when they kidnapped Buttercup. Westley spends a good half hour of the movie wearing a mask and assuming the role of the Dread Pirate Roberts. In fact, the bad guys don't even do that much bad stuff. Westley and Inigo are the only ones who kill people in the movie. _Those_ are our good guys."

"Inigo and Fezzik are never bad guys," Soren protested. "They banter about rhymes and are instantly against killing her. No one is under the pretense that they're actually bad guys, except for the maybe six year olds and that's just because kids are dumb. Everyone knows they're good guys who are doing their job because they don't want to hear Wallace Shawn talk."

Michael nodded. "Yeah, that's what people said about those drug dealers who were selling to kids and shot all those cops. They were really good guys who were just doing their job."

"Michael has a point," Katie said. "Kidnapping is still kidnapping."

"No, I think I was agreeing with Soren."

"And you're wrong," Dan said. "The only character who spends the whole movie as a clear cut good guy is Buttercup. Everyone else has at least a moment of being morally grey."

"Don't even get me started on her," Soren muttered.

"What could you _possibly_ have against Buttercup? She doesn't have any of the quotable lines that have tormented you for the last twenty years."

"That's exactly the problem. She's boring."

"No!" Dan exclaimed. "She's tough and she's stubborn. She tries to escape when she's been kidnapped, shoves Westley down a hill when he was being a jackass, and she refuses to marry Humperdink even though she'd be a queen."

"She's useless," Soren countered. "She passively gets kidnapped -- twice, by the way -- freezes when there's an eel in her face, and she can't even walk through the fire swamp by herself. You'd think she pick up how to move away from the fire spurts after that time he dress _burst into flames_ , but Westley has to drop what he's doing and move her out of the way himself every single time. I don't even know if she's lazy or just an idiot."

"He's being chivalrous!"

"Yeeeeah," Katie said slowly, "the first time she takes a step without Westley by her side, Buttercup does fall into the lightning sand and need to be rescued."

"Getting rescued is all she does in the fire swamp," Soren said with a grin. "And when Westley gets attacked by the ROUS, she just stands there."

"She does hit the giant rat with a stick," Katie said.

"But then when it turns on her, a now injured Westley has to save her yet again. All she can do is scream his name." Soren shook his head. "Buttercup is awful. She's a terrible role model for the young girls watching this movie. They're the ones who grew up to be Twilight fans, expecting their boyfriends to live forever through the power of love."

Michael narrowed his eyes. "Buttercup's a Mormon?"

"Fine," Dan said, waving a hand in the air, presumably so no one would reply to Michael. "Forget Buttercup. What about Inigo? He becomes an expert swordsman through years of study to seek revenge for his father's death. It's noble. And he can fight left-handed."

Soren shrugged. "Except that unless someone is telling him what to do, he's wasted. His alcoholism is established early and the first time he loses a fight, he goes to the Thieves Forest and gets shitfaced. Should drunk people really have swords?"

"I have a katana," Michael said.

"Michael, you just keep proving my point," Soren replied.

"Inconceivable!"

"Besides," Soren continued, "Westley has been studying swordplay for a quarter of the time Inigo has and he kicks Inigo's ass."

"So, you at least like Westley?" Dan asked.

Katie tapped the table with a finger. "Now, see, Westley's the one I have an issue with."

"No," Dan moaned, "not you too."

"Sorry, Dan. I mean, sure, Westley's pretty and romantic, and he knows how to destroy everyone in his path like a masked John McClane, but he's a real asshole to Buttercup when she doesn't know it's him. He taunts her, makes a bunch of digs about her being a woman, and then he nearly hits her. Then the second he as you wishes down the hill, all's forgotten."

"Maybe he was getting back at her for all those years she tormented him when he was her farmhand," Soren suggested.

"She does list torturing him as one of her hobbies," Michael said. "She likes horses and torturing her employee. I guess that was before unions."

"No wonder he managed to survive the Pit of Despair. He could take anything after years of abuse."

"But he was in love with her!" Dan said. "Why are we back on Buttercup? I thought we were done with Buttercup."

"She's didn't even respect him enough to call him by his name." Soren heaved a sigh and took a sip of his soda through the straw.

"And she didn't seem to notice that he was smoking hot until she figured out that he was in love with her," Katie added. "If 80's Cary Elwes worked on _my_ farm, let's just say I wouldn't have been bothering him with fetching me pitchers."

Michael laughed and elbowed her. "Yeah, you'd be catching."

Dan narrowed his eyes as Katie scooted her chair away from Michael. "I don't think that joke works with a girl," he said. "I don't think that joked works at all."

"You know who I always hated?" Michael asked, as though Dan hadn't said a word. "I hated that kid. I don't know what was so terrible about the kissing parts. Everyone else wants to see them bone."

"That's just you," Dan said.

"He might be the worst part of the movie," Soren said. "He's ungrateful. Peter Falk probably had better things to do that day then read a kid a story. I bet that kid faked sick so he could play shitty 80's video games all day."

Kate rested her elbows on the table. "I had such a crush on Kevin Arnold."

Michael sighed. "Me too."

"Does anyone even know his real name? He's just Kevin Arnold in my mind, but that's not right." Soren asked. "I can't think of it. Daniel?"

"If you can't recognize the brilliance of The Princess Bride, you can die too, for all I care." Dan grinned as Soren glared at him.

"You just quoted the movie, didn't you?"

"You know you want to finish the line. I know you know it."

Soren heaved a loud sigh. "As you wish."


End file.
